


Skip A Heartbeat and Survive

by alwaysenduphere



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-22
Updated: 2012-12-22
Packaged: 2017-11-22 01:34:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/604367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alwaysenduphere/pseuds/alwaysenduphere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You know, I haven't worked with you long, but it seems to me you sure get injured a lot.” In which Clint follows orders just enough to get captured and Natasha cares enough to save the day. Or I guess, in which Clint Barton is the damsel in distress.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Skip A Heartbeat and Survive

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TaleWeaver](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TaleWeaver/gifts).



The earpiece crackles in Natasha's ear, Coulson's voice slipping through over the static. She doesn't startle, the feeling of an ear bud no longer unfamiliar, but sometimes it still unnerves her just slightly to hear the voice of someone else when there's no one to be seen, almost as though ghosts of a past life are creeping up from behind.

"Status report, Agent Romanoff." She's been called many things in her life. She's still having a hard time wrapping her head around ‘Agent.’

"Sir," she responds. "Agent Barton went into the compound exactly ten minutes ago. I haven't heard anything since."

"Acknowledged," her handler replies, and she knows she should leave it there, should follow mission protocol as she was trained, as Clint trained her, but she's been on her own for awhile and old habits die hard.

"Sir, I still don't understand why I'm out here keeping watch and Agent Barton is on the inside. With all due respect, I'm far better at infiltration than he could ever be."

Empty static buzzes in her ear momentarily, and she can almost picture Coulson's grim disapproval. She's been working almost exclusively with him and Clint since her arrival at SHIELD, and she's gotten to know them both quite well. Coulson is a quiet yet commanding man; she knows Coulson has a reason why he does the things he does, and his response only reminds her. "Well, with all due respect, Agent Romanoff, there is a time and place for everything. Please let me know if the situation changes."

Natasha's spent enough of her life taking orders to recognize a dismissal when she hears one. "Yes, sir."

The wind whips her hair around her face, red strands tangling in a fiery swath as she waits on top of the taller building opposite the compound Clint had walked right into ten - now twelve - minutes ago. She's well aware how well he can take care of himself, has come face to face with his bow on several occasions and only made it out alive because of his ability to see her for something better than what she was. She trusts Clint Barton, even likes him, and he is probably the only person at SHIELD she can say that about so far with her limited experience of the place. But she doesn't quite understand how sending him into a building possibly full of armed hostiles is a good idea, because while Clint is many things, stealthy has never been one of them. Clint Barton is an elephant in a room full of mice. Stealth is her gig, what she was bred and trained for, how she has survived for as long as she has. But she waits, because those are her orders, and she follows orders now. She promised Clint she would, after all.

Thirty-five minutes later, Coulson orders her to go in.

"Lethal force only if necessary," he barks into her ear. She wants to respond "it's always necessary,” but that's not who she is anymore, not who she wants to be. So she suffocates the two men she finds guarding the front door only to unconsciousness and quietly helps them slip to the floor.

Mission parameters had just called for Clint to get in the door and find out how many men were inside, make the exchange of information and then come out safely. Then and only then would they return with a full team if the information provided didn’t pan out. But Clint had to be Clint, so now Natasha is going in blind. She thinks Clint is just lucky she's a pretty capable person, honestly.

She sees him before he sees her, tied to a chair, dried blood around his nose and his wrists raw from the rope with which he's tied up, but otherwise unharmed. His attention is only drawn to her once she knocks out the first guard in the room, seizing the attention of the other five, including the one pointing a gun at Clint's head. He gives her a cocky smile and she rolls her eyes, throwing one, two, three knives at dead aim, one into his head and the other two in the nearest combatants.

Clint smiles, his eyes surveying the situation. "Jesus Christ, I was beginning to think you'd never show up. Come untie me and I'll help do some damage. Did you forget the plan or something?"

She slides past Clint before the other two can draw their guns, depositing her last knife in his hand before taking her cover behind a table near his chair. "Clint, there was no plan. There was you, go in, and me, wait outside on the cold windy rooftop. I don't know how you do that sort of thing on a regular basis, in all honesty."

"There was totally a plan," Clint says, finally slicing himself free of his ropes. Natasha watches him stand up, swing at the man nearest him, teeter, and fall back down into the chair. Not just a bloody nose, then.

She scowls at him. "Coulson, were you aware of any plan that involved Agent Barton tied to a chair?"

Coulson's voice crackles into her ear. "I was not."

"It was totally part of the plan,” Clint insists, “because see, when people think you're vulnerable, they tell you things. Like the whereabouts of certain high profile criminals, which is a lot easier than exchanging information that may or may not be trustworthy. Better to just get your point across. I learned that from you, Tash." He tries standing again, and manages long enough to grab the arm of an attacker and fling him to the ground before staggering back down into the chair. "I wish I had my bow," Natasha hears him mumble to himself, and she almost smiles. He’d been the one to insist his bow would make him appear hostile before he even got in the door and that they’d lose any possible ground they’d gained.

"I wish you did, too," she says, shooting the last of the men square in the head, the only bullet fired during the entire debacle. She'll claim it was a total necessity, let Coulson deal with the paperwork. Sometimes an op just isn't meant to be silent. "I'm flattered you think so highly of me, though I think your broken nose and obvious concussion might have other opinions. Also Coulson's going to be mad at you."

"Honestly, I'm fine, little duck," Clint says as she helps him to his feet.

There are many things in life that annoy Natasha Romanoff: American drivers, the smell of burning trash, poorly maintained weapons, but very few things annoy her more than nicknames. Clint has somehow figured this out already, and has not stopped calling her ridiculous pet names ever since. Some she lets slide. Some, she doesn't. She twists herself out from underneath the arm he’s using to support himself with, allows him to stagger a bit. "I told you to stop calling me that."

"Fine, fine." He rubs at his shoulder, unsteady on his feet until she allows him to sling an arm back over her own shoulders.

Her hair keeps sticking to her face as she pulls Clint along, and she keeps stopping and pushing it out of her face, forcing Clint to slowly figure out how to stand on his own or fall down trying. After the fifth time, he says, "You should cut it all off, then you'd be able to help me out easier."

"Yes, but then people would think you were the girl," she says, slinging his arm back up over her shoulders in a way that clamps her hair underneath its weight. It’s an uncomfortable pull on her scalp, but at least they won’t have to stop again.

"Cute."

Coulson's voice breaks in over Natasha's earpiece. "If you guys would like to hurry it up at any time so I can be mad at you both for your blatant disregard of mission protocols, that'd be great."

Clint chuckles. "You love me. Besides, what's a little banter between comrades, boss?"

Natasha startles. "Wait, your comm still works? Coulson could hear you this whole time?"

"I told you, it was all part of a plan."

"Just not exactly the plan as we'd discussed it, Barton," Coulson says.

"Well, it's nice to be included in things." She lets Clint’s arms slide off her shoulders and makes no move to help him as he staggers to the wall.

"You could've been killed. This mission was stupid and reckless." She's never been one of those people with a short fuse, she's always been capable of a controlled burn, of holding on to her anger and using it for a purpose, to fuel her fire, so to speak, but something about Clint Barton brings it out of her like nothing else ever has.

"And payback for that stunt you pulled in Caracas last week, running off with that idiot who calls himself ‘the cartel king’ then not contacting us for six hours," Clint responds. "Now you know how it feels."

"Not the same and you know it."

"You're both right, and you're both reckless," Coulson says over the comm.

Clint waves a hand in the air, dismissing Coulson’s comment. "You've still a lot to learn about how we do things, Natasha. Besides, I knew you'd come save me. Now come on, get me out of here, the noise you made, there's probably more goons coming."

"Wouldn't have had to make any noise if you'd followed the plan,” she retorts. “Coulson, got any extraction plans?"

"There's a safe house 14 blocks away, if you think Barton can make it there."

By the time they reach the safe house, Clint's almost walking on his own, his arm slung over her shoulders still but barely any weight being supported.

The safe house turns out to be an ugly grey apartment building squeezed in between other abandoned apartment buildings, so indistinguishable, Natasha's not sure she's in the right place until she's asked for a pass code in the elevator before it moves. She puts in her SHIELD ID code, a series of numbers she'd repeated to herself when she first got it over and over in every language she knew just to remind herself not to screw things up. The elevator lurches to a start, taking them up four floors before screeching to a stop. She's not sure if it's good or bad that they’re staying in a safe house that's not often used.

"You know, I haven't worked with you long, but it seems to me you sure get injured a lot," she says, giving the apartment a once over before helping Clint inside.

"Perks of the job. Guess I'm just lucky you're around to save me now," Clint says, dropping himself onto the couch. She expects dust to start flying, but nothing happens. Either someone comes in to check on the place regularly or another agent has stayed recently. She doesn’t much care for either option.

There’s no food in the refrigerator and ice is the only thing in the freezer, but it's the only thing she needs at the moment, stripping off her over shirt to wrap it in. She hands the makeshift ice pack to Clint, who stares at her uneasily for a minute before putting on his face without prompting.

She smiles. "It's true; I don't know how you ever survived a day without me."

"Pure luck,” he says, looking at her with one eye around the ice while using part of the shirt to wipe the dried blood off his chin. “Tasha, in all seriousness, thanks for today."

She sits down on the sofa next to him, gently bumps her shoulder into his. She’s suddenly exhausted, adrenaline gone and hours of tension built up settling in. "You'd do the same for me, Clint. You have done the same for me."

“‘Partners ‘til the end?’ We should get it tattooed. Just not somewhere visible. SHIELD frowns upon that."

Natasha knocks his shoulder again, and he feigns pain before sagging into her and trapping her to the couch with his weight. She takes the makeshift ice bag from his hands and adjusts it to cover the black eye he’s sprung from the broken nose, watching him wince and then relax as the cold starts to numb the pain. She smiles. "Oh, shut up, you stupid _durak_ and get a couple hours sleep. I'm sure Coulson will exfil us as soon as he can. Also, don't lie to me about mission parameters again. That's not what partners do."

She feels Clint nod sluggishly against her chest and mumble something resembling “partners” before his breathing settles into a steady rhythm.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [nessatalewearver](http://nessataleweaver.livejournal.com) in [Avengersfest](http://avengersfest.livejournal.com) and originally posted [here](http://avengersfest.livejournal.com/22771.html) on LJ.


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